On a Declare Label you will see a red box beside either Red List Free, LBC Compliant or Declared. Red List Free and LBC Compliant products are allowed on an Living Building Challenge project, they are either Red List free or meet an exception of the Living Building Challenge and they have declared at least 99% of their ingredients. Since the Declare Label is a transparency label, they still award the Declare Label for products that have Red List item(s) but have been transparent about their ingredients, these are the ones marked Declared.
In our news about materials research, I (Caitlyn) will refer to compliant materials as materials that are 99% Declared and Red List Free (also FSC certified, meeting VOC etc). This is to be consistent with the Declare Label and to keep things simple, although definitions differ a little in the Petal Handbook.
I started out as a materials researcher over 3 years ago and found that I needed to explain declaration to suppliers again and again. There are other trickier examples of how I determine percentage declared, but this is the simplest example.
40 – 50% Air-blown bitumen (64742-93-4)
35 – 45% Softener (804-47-5)
0 – 15% Calcium carbonate (9003-55-8)
This is a 75% declared, because the minimum for any range is calculated.
What do you think is the percentage declared for the example given (in the image)?